You're fat, I'm thin - ASK ME HOW!

I made vegan rye and maize bread!

2010-04-27T04:10:00.000-07:00

When I have flour in the house I often make bread. If there’s no dried or fresh yeast in the house then I’ll mix up a sourdough starter. (And if you take a look at my previous post then you’ll see how I do that.) But this weekend I did have the remains of some dried yeast (Allinsons) in a little tub – just a few grains, perhaps half a teaspoon really.

So I mixed up the dried yeast with a few raisins (sliced in half), as I didn’t have any sugar, a little oatmeal and some polenta meal, along with some hand-hot water. Covered with a clean teatowel, it was ready to froth!

I don’t often bother with recipes for bread making. (Although based on some of the bricks I’ve produced, maybe I should. Overconfidence is my problem!) I added five hundred grams of rye flour to the starter once it had developed a nice head, along with a hundred grams or so of polenta meal, and stirred, rather than kneaded it.

I considered my work done once the mix started cleanly coming away from the side of the bowl. I don’t bother doing a lot of kneading when using rye flour. It doesn’t have sufficient gluten to really benefit from it, I think, or not without some wheat flour added.

Once mixed up, I put it in a warm oven to rise for about seven hours. It did rise quite well for rye bread, although I didn’t catch it quite quick enough and it had started to sag a bit by the time I stuck it in a hot oven to bake. I put it on at 190 degrees Celsius and left it for around an hour, and you can see the results for yourself.

What is it like? Well, it’s a big brick of rye and maize bread, rather heavy and a bit too moist in the middle. (Is it just me, or does home-made bread and naturally raised sourdough bread often look like a huge poop?) I should have left it in a bit longer, I suppose, and uncooked yeast is, I think, supposed to be rather bad for you. Sod it, though, I’ll just toast it. It tastes good anyway. It’s kind of vegan by default: there weren’t any animal ingredients to hand that I wanted to put in it. But I love me an hour or two of vegan baking, it makes me feel very virtuous!

Vegan rye and maize bread, the no-knead, no-animal ingredients, no-recipe way! That’s my way!

Making, Baking, Eating Sourdough Bread – Simple, Quick and Easy

2010-04-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

Breadmakers! Do you love to make yeast breads, kneading happily away at lumps of dough for hours – but sheer away anxiously at the thought of trying your hand at sourdough breads? I’m sure that this applies to lots of people out there. But why is that? My guess is that it is due to the artificially constructed mystique that has been built up around making and baking sourdough bread. Is making sourdough bread really as forbiddingly, impenetrably mysterious and difficult, in the way it tends to be presented as? I don’t think so, and that’s from personal experience!

So how do you go about making sourdough bread, if you’re a complete newbie? My personal recommendation would be to get yourself a copy of an anti-candida cookbook, as many of these have recipes for yeast-free sourdough bread (which is the easiest way to make sourdough bread). The recipe I follow merely involved adding some whole grain to filtered water, and allowing it to stand for a day or two in a bowl covered with a clean teatowel. At the end of this period the grain has fermented due to the action of wild yeasts, and become foamy and fizzy on the surface. This is the starter, which I add to a quantity of wholegrain flour and a pinch of salt, knead into a dough and allow to prove overnight into a big expanded loaf.

Once this is done, bake the resulting loaf at around 200 degrees Celsius for approximately one hour, and you have your sourdough loaf! How simple (and delicious) is that? It usually has a mild sour flavour (surprise!) that goes really well in sandwiches with lots of salad (and some mayo!)

I’ve made delicious loaves with this method for years now. Usually I use wholemeal wheat flour, but sometimes I ring the changes and throw in some porridge oats to the mix. I’ve even made an all-barley flour loaf before now (although as barley is short on gluten, the end result was rather heavy.)

I guess some hygiene obsessives might feel some concern at this method of making bread. Natural yeasts? Yow! Get the health and safety police in here! (Although given what’s known about fungus infections and rye grain, I would hesitate to make rye loaves using this method.) All I can say is, I got the method from a pretty well-researched anti-candida book, it beats endless complicated tinkering around with sugar and baker’s yeast fuelled ‘mothers’, and, hey, I disclaim all responsibility if you choose to give it a try! (It hasn’t poisoned me yet!)

Photo credit: rexipe (Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic).

Making a cake with no ingredients

2009-10-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

Regular readers of this blog (ha!) will already know that I am a big devotee of store cupboard cooking. By this I mean not running out to stock up whenever you run out of your exotic ingredient (or boring everyday staple) of choice. No, instead I choose to think outside the (blimmin’) box, to be inventive, to scour my freezer, fridge and cupboards until I come up with something tasty – or at least edible – from the ingredients I already have at hand.

By this I don’t mean that I never ever go food shopping. Of course this is something that one can only take so far. (Although I can personally take it pretty damned far.) But only when I need to, that’s the point, only when I need to. And if there’s food of some description in the house, then I rarely really need to.

So what am I leading up to? Well, the other day I had a hankering for a slice of homemade cake. Sweet, doughy, warm out of the oven, yummy home-made cake. I had a scout around the ingredients of my cupboards and fridge. Then I had a scout around the interwebs for some cake recipes. Given that I had neither eggs nor milk in, I stuck the search term ‘vegan’ in there as shorthand for egg-free, milk-free cakiness.

This is what I finally settled on: a vegan chocolate cake.

Did I follow the recipe? Er no. No marg in the house, nor oil… Not enough cocoa or drinking chocolate either, so I stewed some elderly pears I found in the salad box and threw them in as substitute for both. I did have flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarb, vanilla extract and even cider vinegar. So I felt quite pleased with myself: a virtually identical match between demand and supply! (Yes, I’m smirking here.)

Did it work? Here’s the thing. It smelled fabulous while in the oven. Cakey bakey perfume wafted throughout the whole house.

It looked pretty damn good in the oven too. It looked even better when I got it out. (Check out the photos – hot sexy cakey action!) But looks can be very deceiving. Was it edible? Yes it was – just about. But it was also heavy, doughy and solid, with the beautiful crust a lightly attached deceiver. It tasted like pudding without enough sugar or general naughtiness – healthy pudding. Faugh! How are such abominations allowed to exist?

Kidding folks. It wasn’t so bad – better than no cake at all. But if you have more discerning tastebuds than me – or my other half – then perhaps you’d better follow the recipe a bit more closely the next time you make cake. Store cupboard cookery’s not for the faint of heart, or delicate of palate.

What Would a Thin Person Do II

2009-06-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

In my last post 'What Would a Thin Person Do', I ran through various reasons why it might make more sense to go to naturally thin people for diet advice, rather than the formerly obese. So I intend to give you a few tips from personal experience as a long-term thin person! Disclaimer: I did have a short period in my youth when I became slightly chubby due to bingeing (although not purging - maybe that was the key!). This was due to following a (very unhealthy) 'super-healthy' diet and eating what I thought I 'ought' to eat, rather than a more natural approach. This was a brief period and I've been a normal weight ever since for many years (and was prior to this episode). Youngsters, eh?

1 LIMIT HOW MUCH OF YOUR BUDGET IS ALLOCATED TO FOOD
Let me make it clear, I do not mean to suggest you should live on tinned beans and dry bread, or finish the week sucking wanly on a damp rag, staring into an empty larder. There's nothing wrong with pleasure, and enjoyment from food is very important to me.

What I do mean is that if your budget for food does not have a top limit, and your shopping trolley every week is a tottering tower of goodies, then with so many luxury foods rather than staples, you're eating the diet of a rich person, not the 'plain' food of a simple peasant. In centuries past, the rich were fatter than hoi polloi, because they could afford to be. I think we can draw a few conclusion, there. Oh, and by 'luxury' food, I mean anything highly packaged, with added sugar, or high fat other than nuts, avocados and olives. You have common sense. You can work it out.

2 THIN PEOPLE ARE GREEDY TOO
I have been friends with and worked with many, many overweight people in my time, and I feel that, in the course of the many conversations I have had with them, one dominant idea seemed to crop up again and again in relation to diet and food. This was the notion that, in relation to food – however delicious, luxurious and tempting – all thin people either possessed an almost superhuman level of control or didn't really care about food. I suppose this is based on the idea that, if thin people truly enjoyed and relished their meals, or did not rigidly police their diets, then the entire population would be significantly overweight. This is not the case!

There are more factors feeding in to the amount of food someone eats than just appetite and enjoyment of food and perfect self-control. Point (1) above is just one of these. I cannot speak for every thin person out there, and perhaps there are exceptions – but I know that personally, if you confront me with an unlimited amount of one of my truly favourite foods – turron durro (Spanish nougat) perhaps, or plain madeira cake, or pizza – then it is truly mind-boggling just how much of it I can put away. (To the extent I wind up looking rather like a snake – or thin person – who has swallowed a whole pig). Given the right circumstances, I'm greedy – I will admit it – and I think everyone is greedy. Thin, fat and the whole continuum inbetween!

Therefore...

3 DON'T KEEP TEMPTING FOODS IN THE HOUSE
Not all the time, anyway! I don't mean don't buy them: I just mean don't treat cookies or pizza – or even more workaday staples, such as your favourite nutty seeded granary bread or yummy stuffed olives – as if they were necessities of life like water or Vitamin C. Word up, they're not. No bread in the house? Eat rice. No rice? Eat potatoes. No potatoes?... Okay, I think we all get the general gist here. Bottom line, if you have food in the house of some kind, you're not going to starve anytime soon and it's not, underline not, a shopping emergency if you run out of pistachios.

If you keep going shopping to replenish your store of favourite foods when you run out, then you have a problem. The problem is that your favourite foods are continually available, which is not something that could be replicated if you were, say, a peasant farmer, or a hunter-gatherer tribeswoman. Do you think that you are likely to eat more if your favourite foods are continually available? Speaking from experience, I certainly know that I do! Which leads me on to my second point.

4 TAKE SOME EXERCISE
I've seen them, you've seen them, we've all seen them. What am I talking about? The weight-loss reality show type programs where the subject is willing to do just about anything to get some weight off. Anything, that is, except for getting up off the couch and getting some exercise.

Note, as a thin person, I'm not talking about joining a gym or running twelve miles a day. I dislike exercise as much as any sane, rational person. I love a walk around a beautiful area of designated natural beauty, though. Even then, I don't always feel like it when the suggestion arises – but forcing myself to get up and put my boots on gets me moving. And once I'm out there and enjoying the wildlife and scenery, I'm loving it.

What I mean to say is, physical activity is important for health. And if that's how you approach it – rather than as a mad-dash rush to lose weight – then it can be enjoyable. What you need to do is to find the type of exercise you can enjoy – swimming, yoga, whatever feels right.

5 THROW SOME VEGETABLES IN.
Now this one may seem just a little too much like basic common sense to include. But I think it's worth pointing out, just in case. I'd just like to make this point: food quality is important, just as much as calories. And so is caloric density. Am I contradicting myself? Not really. High quality, nutritious food – real food – like vegetables, whole grains, pulses, fish – is often of lower calorie density than, say, doughnuts and pizza. Depending on the specific item added to a meal, it can increase the volume you can eat for the same calories, while improving the nutritional quality of the meal. (This said, I never consider the caloric content of anything I eat – merely whether it tastes good and if I want more. Improving food quality takes care of the rest.)

How much frozen veg, pulses and brown rice do I add to a chilli? Well, how much ya got?

6. I DON'T EAT DIET FOOD.
I guess this one is up to you. What can I say? If I'm any example, long-term thin people (rather than chronic dieters) don't eat diet food. They eat real food, mostly high quality, with a few naughty treats. End of.

If it has more 'E' numbers than you could find in a bag of Scrabble tiles, and some type of artifical sugar-substitute is high on the list of ingredients, then – well, I'm not going to say I won't eat it. Not if you offer me some. I will – I'm the least picky person about food! But will I spend a couple of pounds on it, when I could get half a chicken, or a pack of frozen spinach, or some brown rice and peanuts for the same money? Ahem – not likely.

Food is real food, not diet food. Anything else is fake food.

7. DON'T SUFFER. ENJOY FOOD.
Is this the most important point of all? I tend to think so. Should food make us miserable? Should we agonise over every mouthful? I dare to say, no. I think not. Enjoy food. Let it take its proportionate and reasonable place in your life. Free up all that energy used on calorie counting and worrying about fat grams, and use it on something creative or generally awesome. Crazy?

Maybe I am. But you could try it.

Photo credit: Kpalion, 2005, public domain image.

What would a thin person do?

2009-06-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

Have you got a friend who's on another diet? (The latest one in a long series). Or perhaps you yourself have been through every diet known to man – high-protein, high carb, raw, fruit only, fruit only before meals, etc. etc. etc. I am continually puzzled by the success of diet books – one diet book after another, with a never-ending appetite for them from the general public. Surely if they worked then the market would eventually dry up?

Another thing that puzzles me is that, reading most of these books, a very large percentage of them seem to have been written by an ex-fat person. Now maybe it's just me, but I seem to have read at least half a dozen or so articles suggesting that the success rate for diets is pretty darn low. They tend to give statistics (however reliable) that are frequently startling on this subject. That seems to suggest a high likelihood that even if you are overweight, go on a diet you researched or invented, lose tons of weight and write a million-selling book about it – you're statistically quite likely to put the weight right back on again.

Now one of those diets out there might be an exception to this phenomenon. Perhaps all of its adherents, without fail and without exception, lose tons of weight following it – and keep it off. If so, though, wouldn't the market for diet books be decreasing? Yet there always seems to be another super-hyped one coming around the corner, and frequently selling extremely well.

So in essence, when you buy a diet book from an ex-fat person, you're buying it from someone quite like yourself in one respect. That is, someone statistically likely to put the weight right back on at some point.

Wouldn't it be better to take advice from someone who hasn't 'succeeded' in losing weight – because they were never fat in the first place? What I mean is, to study the habits and diets of people who never think about their weight, or special diets, or obesity – because they just don't have to? It seems to me that you could learn more this way about what will produce the results you want, i.e. long-term weight loss and a healthy attitude towards food, rather than suffering and self-denial.

And that's why my next article will be about my own views of and approach to food and diet, as a long-term thin person. Read it and pick up a few tips!

12 Clove Chicken Garlic Soup – How to Make It

2009-05-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

Picture credit: Matt Frederick (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 licence).

This is my own recipe, developed over several years of trial and error, for garlic chicken soup with dumplings. Be warned – as you might expect, this is one for the truly dedicated garlic lovers only. Of course you may prefer to dial down the number of cloves you throw into this delicious broth. But really, that simply misses the whole powerful, pungent point of the recipe. Start crushing those cloves, and get the full effect! Remember that garlic has been suggested to have some health benefits.

Now, to begin:

INGREDIENTS (for two people).
4-6 chicken drumsticks (preferably free range and organic).
12 garlic cloves
400g mixed frozen vegetables (broad beans and string beans are good).
25g flour (white wheat flour).
Splash of light soy sauce.
Generous amounts of black pepper.
Large pinch of salt.
Fresh chopped parsley or puree from tube (2 tsps).
Small knob fresh ginger.
200g chopped fresh field mushrooms (optional).
1 tbsp tomato puree (optional).

DUMPLINGS
You can use pre-mixed packet herb dumplings (my usual choice) or the following:

50g suet.
150g-200g white wheat flour
Pinch of suet
1 tsp mixed herbs.

INSTRUCTIONS
1 Take a large, stout pan and place the chicken and frozen vegetables in it, along with enough cold water to almost cover them.
2 Bring to a fast boil and keep at a fast boil for at least ten minutes.
3 Reduce temperature, apply a well-fitting lid to the saucepan and bring to a slightly bubbling simmer for another 40 minutes. Check liquid levels periodically and top up if getting low.

PREPARE THE FOLLOWING TO ADD AT THE END OF 40 MINUTES
4 Mix the 25g of flour with a little water.
5 Crush the garlic cloves finely.
6 Grate the fresh ginger finely.
7 Chop the mushrooms (if used) and microwave on high for two-three minutes. (Two if enough 'liquor' is produced, three if still slightly uncooked).
8 Prepare the packet dumpling mix as instructed, or alternately use the prescribed ingredients as follows:

Combine the 150g-200g of flour, pinch of salt and mixed herbs in a small bowl. Mix in the suet and stir in half a cup of water. This should result in a loose, slightly wet mixture. If it is still dry then add some more water. Prepare this just before the end of the 40 minutes the soup has spent simmering.

9 At the end of the 40 minutes you may wish to fish out the drumsticks and remove the skins as some people dislike having them floating in the soup. (This still leaves extra fat content in the soup, however: if this is a concern to you you may prefer to remove the skins prior ot cooking. This is a disagreeable job, however and I don't do this myself. You could always use skinless chicken breasts instead).
10 Add the garlic, flour and water, soy sauce, pepper, salt, parsley, ginger, mushrooms and tomato puree to the soup. Stir well.
11 Take the dumpling mix, portion it out into approximately dessert spoon size portions, and put the portions into the soup. Apply the well-fitting lid and leave to simmer for 20-25 minutes (or as per the packet if using packet mix). The end result should be aerated like a crumpet, savoury, fluffy and light.
12 At the end of cooking, serve with perhaps a few extra twists of black pepper, and crusty bread if you fancy a little extra starch!

Enjoy your garlic-laden soup, remember all the health benefits being explored by researchers, and take some breath mints around with you the next day!

birthdays are bad

2008-02-29T15:00:00.000-08:00

birthdays are bad, christmas is bad, any excuse to eat crap and drink is bad.

since the OH and myself both had birthdays recently, i've had no opportunity to recover from christmas. What have I learned?

That home-made White Russians are delicious. But don't overdue the Kahlua.

We have deep-fried chips instead of oven ones about twice a year. We've had them three days running now. I'm just about ready to puke.

But I must finish up the chocolates first.

coffee coffee coffee jibber jibber jibber

2007-07-18T07:13:00.000-07:00

I am in no position to criticise someone else for lack of self-control. I am unable to have coffee in the house and not chain-drink it. I had three cups this morning on an empty stomach while writing my new Ellora's Cave masterpiece. And more since lunch.

Maybe manic people just drink too much coffee. Judging by my feelings and activities now (manic writing and crafting) I think it may be at least a partial explanation.

(There is an old comedy sketch show which had a running gag about a has-been Swedish rock-star doing a confessional reality show regarding his caffeine addiction. I realise this doesn't exactly make me Lizzy Wurtzel).

Pizza and crisps for a late Saturday lunch

2007-05-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

Who are these size zero nutjobs anyhow?

Food is better than cocaine. You can score it for years without your nose dropping off to start with.

no more tea never ever

2007-05-18T03:59:00.000-07:00

http://hubpages.com/hub/Trouble-In-The-Office-Paracetamol-Coffee-and-a-Little-FictionI try not to drink coffee as i can feel it corroding my gums as it goes down. However this last week i've hardly drunk any tea either. And i've had the worst headache of my life, along with occasional retching... lovely. Coincidence?

I had one cup yesterday before going off for an interview... and it shut the headache off like turning a tap.

Most sources give tea half the caffeine of coffee. Which means two cups of tea = one cup of coffee.

I'm staying away from those lovely antioxidants in future. Bungs you up too. Allegedly. Hem.

Remains of last night's Chinese...

2007-05-11T13:20:00.001-07:00

Remains of last night's Chinese... and wine. New job blues. I feel entirely justified.

A little too thin

2007-05-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

Too glum to eat. Get depressed, lose weight! I'll make millions!

2007-05-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

http://hubpages.com/hub/Sorsola-Soave-Dry-White-Just-Right-White-Wine-Product-ReviewMostly at the moment, I'm drinkin' port while waiting for the other half to finish cookin' sausage and mash. What do I know? I'm freakin' out: new job tomorrow.

And I'm completely piddled.

Isn't it interesting how impossible it is to spell while you're COMPLETELY RAT-ARSED?

bread!

2007-04-01T12:31:00.000-07:00

Making my own bread lately: dried yeast, white flour, lots of seaweed flakes, sprouted flax seed and soya bran. Nice! And easy: once I'd worked out that you need more than a scant teaspoon of yeast.

Lovely lovely breakfast...

2006-09-24T00:18:00.000-07:00

This is my space-age breakfast.

Haha. Not. This is how I take supplements - buy at random, chuck 'em all in together into a jar and then take ten or twenty when it occurs to me.

Just what your doctor didn't order!

I figure as long as I know what each one is, keep an eye on overall amounts esp. of the fat-soluble vits ('cause I don't want my liver to explode) wrt RDAs, then I'll be fine. Disclaimer: if you now choose to do this, I didn't tell you to! Consult your doctor (and cover my ass).

What I think I know:

Too much Vit A & D - liver explodes (funny!)
Too much Vit E/K - runny bleeding, lovely. probably not good. Haemorrhagic stroke? something like that I think.
More than 4g of Vit C - goodbye kidneys.
Too much of various Vit B subgroups - not good, can't remember why. Nerve damage i think.

Be careful out there!

the gout's killing me, old chap

2006-09-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

So one of the bottles I had it away with at the freeforall night at closing-down-supermarket was port. Which turns out to taste like sweet red wine. I got reasonably inebriated and, the day after, feel absolutely fine. The boyfriend, on the same amount, got slaughtered, and still feels rough.

Mysteries.

Cheddar shortbread

2006-09-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

Um, yum, that was good. From the closing-down supermarket yesterday.

Now I feel stuffed with junk and ready to go on a health binge.

NOT a diet. There are more reasons to pay attention to your diet than your weight y'know.

Broth and tomato juice for a day or two, then. After I've finished the sherry. And the port.

Maybe skin-bins can eat junk food and not put on weight (if they're not eating the entire contents of a closing-down supermarket). Does that make it a good idea? I don't think so. Not unless you want to be a 'fat thin person' - Google it and find out what that is. That's me.

Vitamins and protein. Not entirely a bad idea.

laydee sherry drinker

2006-09-20T13:56:00.000-07:00

I had a doctor's appointment today, and popped into the supermarket next door because I needed an onion. Turns out they were closing down, and everything was on special offer. Now I'm piddled on the sherry (£1.18), and will shortly be scoffing the crisps and shortbread.

At the doc's they weighed me (new patient). They had to, because I couldn't tell them what I weigh, because I don't own a pair of scales. Because I don't care what I weigh.

oven ready

2006-04-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

Supper tonite: oven chips, potato and cheese and cauliflower croquettes. Out of the packet, into the oven, out of the oven, into the stomach. Bony people do that too! Sometimes you're just too bone-tired to cook.

Where's me glass?

Dough what is sour

2006-04-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

I made sourdough bread tonite. I don't know how the wholefood writers are allowed to make such a mystery of it - it's piss-easy. Take wholemeal flour, add water in a bowl, leave for two days and it'll froth up. Add to lots of flour, add whatever ingredients you fancy - cornmeal, soya flour, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, spices, herbs, whatever - knead up into a lump of dough, leaven in a warm place for 24 hours and cook at 200 degrees Celsius for one hour.

Or at a pinch, if you're a bit unsavoury, use a pan of soup you've left on the stove for too long instead.

Works for me!

Mistake No. 6: Thin people don't eat when they're not hungry

2006-04-09T15:26:00.000-07:00

There's something wrong with people who don't go grazing when they're bored and aimless. Or when there's a packet of cheese 'n' red onion Kettle Chips open on the table in front of 'em while they're watching ABC1.

I do know a couple of people like this, but I don't know what's wrong with 'em.

Duckies

2006-02-27T13:51:00.000-08:00

Yew blimmin' liar, yew are. I'm watching you. I saw you grab the last two bits of bread...

Good scoffin' tonite

2006-02-26T12:11:00.000-08:00

Sweet wine, 'poshages' (oh do keep up. Free Range Organic Duchy Original Original Sausages), eggs, tomatoes, chips and sliced white bread and butter. (Butter, not marg). Sound!

To an accompaniment of the latest episode of 'Invasion' on More4 and a neckrub promised later.

Life is sweet. If yer eatin' lettuce as we speak, more fool you.

Mistake No. 5: 'mouth' hunger and 'stomach' hunger

2006-02-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

Isn't this the idea that the body will naturally regulate the appetite if you listen to it carefully enough? And don't seize and scoff that ham sandwich just because it looks good and you fancy it. Perish the thought. You must listen until you actually hear your stomach talking to you. In a weeny teeny little voice, saying 'o I am so hungry please sir pleeeease may I have some more?'

At this point you may consume a mug of low-fat soup and a cracker. Alternatively you may already have been carried off to a secure institution.

A thin person knows weight is regulated by a combination of appetite and environment. And at this point I re-direct you to the dictum that IF YOU DON'T BUY IT THEN YOU CAN'T EAT IT!

Mistake No. 4: Thin people eat thin food

2006-02-16T12:44:00.000-08:00

... like dry crispbread. Or special weightwatchers readymeals with half the fat twice the sugar and none of the taste.

You don't see habitually thin people eating that shite. Get a clue!

Getting food-poisoning

2006-02-16T12:40:00.000-08:00

A mistake for anybody. I am of course convinced this has nothing to do with the gorgeous Thai food I had the other night. It can't have. I could eat that again twice over. Although not right now.

A tetchy gut is of course great for moderating the appetite. If you like that sort of thing.

New posts have comments?

2006-02-12T05:12:00.000-08:00

New posts have comments?

Naturopathic Gerson nonsense

2006-02-12T03:57:00.000-08:00

... or is it? Last week, judging by the cover on the Guardian Weekend magazine, I was all ready to read a debunking article, rubbishing the claims of the Gerson diet. In fact, the writer, Rebecca Atkinson, achieved some surprising results, though she backed off from continuing with the (insanely demanding) diet due to its effects on her lifestyle. Check it out yourself:-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1700720,00.html

I think her reaction goes a little too far though I can understand her reasoning. Since the Gerson method hasn't been adequately peer-reviewed and analysed, and the evidence appears to be anecdotal, maybe there are other versions of the diet that could produce still better results. Maybe easier diets - life doesn't always reward greater effort. If I was Atkinson I'd give it at least a couple of months on Innocent smoothies and Covent Garden soups - not much cheaper, maybe, but as easy as opening a bottle/carton, and yummy to boot! In fact even without RP that's a diet I'd find pretty easy to stick to.

In fact I may email the Guardian about it. Why pass up a chance to be written off as a food-crank nutjob?

Fridge-Scrapings Risotto

2006-02-09T17:06:00.000-08:00

Did I tell you about Fridge-Scrapings Risotto yet? Can you bear the anticipation? Can you guess?

scoff

2006-01-26T11:21:00.000-08:00

supper tonite: chips, veggie sausages and soup (yes, F/S soup). mm - mm - mm!

Scoffin' Part Deux:

2006-01-14T19:17:00.000-08:00

Apple, half small chocolate bar. More soup, mashed potato, liver pate. Bottle of cheap weak red wine. Black coffee. Herbal tea. Orange juice.

It may not seem like it - but I am still rockin' the hunter-gatherer lifestyle...

Up to a point anyway.

Scoffin' today:

2006-01-14T08:38:00.000-08:00

Not much. I have been struck down with a bug and I don't fancy much. Feed a cold? Only if you're still hungry. Here's the scoffin' so far:

2 black coffees
One third of a bottle of wine from last night.
A bowl of spicy soup with lots of vegetables.
A 'health' shake. (I mix these up with yoghurt and anything out of the fridge or store cupboard that seems likely - citrus flavoured fish oil, oat bran, ground ginger, cement dust, you name it. They are invariably disgusting but I chuck 'em down anyway.)
VERY VERY HOT ginger tea made by the bf, flavoured with orange juice. Take that, you bugs! Darn critters!
Some grissini left over from Christmas.
Dilute hot blackcurrant and apple squash.
A big chunk of smoked cheese. And another of unsmoked.

And there's more! No doubt.

all right, if you really want...

2006-01-11T10:27:00.000-08:00

this is fridge scraping soup.

say your fridge has eight withered spring onions in, half a can of spam, some elderly new potatoes, Branston pickle, a heel of cheese and 2 packets of radishes.

that's the recipe for Fridge-Scrapings Soup!

Alternatively, it's whatever you've got in your fridge... (cupboard, vegetable tray, larder, etc etc).

Making Fridge-Scrapings Soup

2006-01-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

OK - best guess on the first step for making Fridge-Scrapings Soup?

Oh, c'mon!

First step: open your fridge...

Fridge-Scrapings Soup

2006-01-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

C'mon, you want to know about Fridge-Scrapings Soup. C'mon, you know you do. You do you do you do you do you do!

Mistake No. 3: Thin people live on Apple-pie Island

2006-01-04T11:17:00.000-08:00

i.e. thin people would remain thin people, even if they lived on an apple pie island with chocolate seas and french-fry palm trees...

Now, the truth for you: thin people don't eat differently, they shop differently.

Because if you don't buy it, you can't eat it.

A fat person looks into a store cupboard containing an onion, a three-quarters empty bag of flour, some pickles, two eggs and a miniature bottle of aniseed flavouring and thinks 'Fuck! I've got nothing to eat! Without protein, I'll probably die! I've got to go out and shop!" They go out, buy a lot of sensible veg-protein-complex carbohydrate type foods, plus all their favourite snacks. That evening they pass out on the sofa from a surfeit of potato chips and diet coke.

The thin person looks into a store cupboard with the same ingredients and thinks, ''Fuck! I've got nothing to eat! Without protein, I'll probably die! ... Oh, fuck it. I can't be arsed. Well, I could make scrambled eggs ... that'd be OK with some chopped onion in ... and maybe a pancake. I think there's some frozen veg in the fridge ... or I'll fry the rest of the onion. Well, I suppose I won't starve till tomorrow...'

What's the difference between these pictures? Living in luxury, and living a peasant lifestyle. That's what.

Cartoons

2006-01-04T11:07:00.000-08:00

Mistake No. 2: Thin people self-correct instantly

2006-01-02T02:21:00.000-08:00

Nooooo!

What, they have a mince pie, and then in an orgy of shame and self-recrimination, spend the next two weeks on a juice-making, sauna-sweating, rowing-machine-juddering hairshirt-fest?

I don't think so. C'mon people, it's Christmas. Look around you. Do you see that happening?

mince pie frenzy

2005-12-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

and thin people would never get in from work, sit down at the computer and eat half of the packet of mince pies they bought on the way home. Before taking their coats off.

Nooooooooo!

Wake up people - greed may not be good, exactly, but it's natural. It's hardwired into our instincts, to ensure we survive famines. Gotta pack on the flesh while you can!

If we were dainty, finicky creatures, who could lose our appetites if our lettuce leaf and grated carrot wasn't, like, perfectly crisp, we'd have died out by now. We're all greedy pigs. That includes the size 8s of this world.

Mistake No. 1: Thin people have perfect self-control

2005-12-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

yeah, right. Because thin people never have a piece of cake, start watching the late film, get to the adbreak and think, 'oh fuck it'. Before going back in the kitchen and cutting a piece that would break yr toe if dropped.

Oh no. they wouldn't do that, would they?

Heh.

Everything fat people think is wrong...

2005-12-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

...about thin people, that is. See following for what fat people think thin people think and do, as opposed to what they actually think and do.

matchstick liz

2005-12-02T11:51:00.000-08:00

I'm a little ole tinribs, I ain't got no chub! Ask me how!